I'm proud and excited to announce that I've partnered with Terry Manley of Manley Rods to launch a national kayak bass fishing tournament trail, the Kayak Bass Series. There will be 6 stops in 6 different states, with the first one being January 31st on St. John's River in Astor, FL. The season will culminate in the KBS Classic, with that location to be voted on by the qualified anglers. You must fish 4 events to qualify for the Classic, or you can join Team Manley Rods (ask me for details) and only have to fish 3.

Cash payouts are going to be HUGE with 100% of the entry fees going back to the anglers. We're expecting first place payouts to be north of $6,000, with the winner of the Classic to take home over $12,000 cash. We've also secured an unprecedented list of sponsor prizes from companies like Jackson Kayak, Manley Rods, Power Pole, Yak Gear, Smith Optics, Brute Outdoors, Accent Paddles, Ecoxgear, Ego S2 Slider Nets, Backwater Paddle Company, KJ's Custom Lures, 412 Bait Company, XCite Baits, FINS Fishing Line, Boonedox, and are currently working out the details with about a dozen other companies, including American Airlines and Whataburger. These companies are being extremely generous, with Jackson putting up 10 kayaks, Power Pole putting up 10 micro anchors, Yak Gear putting up 10 $350 gift cards, etc. Prizes will go to those who place as well as raffled off at each event, with no raffle tickets being sold (your entry fee gets you in the raffle).

This is going to be big.

Check out our website for the full list of spots, sponsor prizes (adding more every day), rules, etc: www.kayakbassseries.com

And follow KBS on Facebook to catch any updates: www.facebook.com/KayakBassSeries

If you're a competitive angler, you don't want to miss this. This will be the B.A.S.S. or FLW of the kayak world. We made our initial announcement 2 weeks ago and the response has been overwhelming. I hope our Texas tournament guys come out and represent for our state. There's a stop in Texas and in Arkansas that aren't too far.

I'll be hosting each event, so I hope to see some of you guys there!

Robert

WIthout a doubt, this could a milestone in competitive kayak fishing. Wish the best of success to ya'll.

I finally got some time to sit down and read through all the rules. Sounds like y'all have a good series coming up. I plan to fish as many as I can. I did have one question. It says under the CPR rules that photos are to be taken with a cell phone and sent to CPR@kayakbassseries.com. Are we supposed to do this in real time as we catch the fish? I ask becuase cell service is pretty shotty on a lot of lakes. And since it says it will be posted in real time does that mean anglers can check the site thoughout the day to see what others have caught like they do on MLF?

One more thing. What other sites have you posted this on? I am curious what others think and it hasn't really gotten a lot of attention on this site. Thanks

I like the idea of real time scoring. But like mentioned above cell service can be and is very shotty on Sam rayburn I know that for a fact not sure about other lakes in the trail. None the less I am planning on getting in on the action for as many stops as I can.

These sound really great however I will just be getting into kayak tournaments next year and should probably just start off fishing the smaller local trails. Not to mention my schedule (usually pretty busy) would make it difficult for me to make the out of state ones. Still a great idea though. Can't wait to see how far it goes and how big it gets!

Saw this on FB. Congrats, Robert. Sounds like this has the potential to be really big.

Congrats Robert. It will be fun to see this happen.

We are still working out the details about how the CPR scoring will work, but how that reads is not how it will work. We're talking to two companies for a live CPR system but we will likely be going with one created by the Snook & Gamefish Foundation that has an app for Apple and Android where you take photos in real time. There is no emailing. There is a backup method in the case of no cell service.

One cool part about the app is our judges will be getting the entries in real-time, and we can accept or reject that within seconds of you taking the photo. So you can take several photos as backups just in case, but you'll also see whether or not we accepted your submitted photo (i.e. the length is visible and fish is properly positioned) within a few seconds.

We haven't decided if we'll let people follow along with live scoring. Our main hesitation there is that it takes away from the excitement of the weigh-in, which is going to be a big event with huge a huge projector/TV displaying the winners' fish as we announce each place and give away prizes. We can control whether it's public or not, so we may keep it private until the weigh-in, or we can even limit the participants' accounts so that they cannot see the leaderboard but others can. I'll update you guys when we make a decision on that, but I'm leaning towards NOT making them live. For me personally, half the fun is going to the weigh-in not knowing how you faired in comparison to the rest. I don't think it's as fun finding out who won on your phone while you drive to the weigh-in.

We've been blasting this on Facebook and Twitter for the most part so far and the response has been pretty overwhelming. We're expecting a big turnout. 200 is sort of our minimum number and based on the feedback so far we have no doubt we'll hit that number. I'm getting about 20 emails and a few calls a day and I know Terry is getting slammed too.

You guys can feel free to reach out to me with more questions at robert@kayakbassseries.com as well.

I second keeping info private until "weigh-in". Getting immediate feedback is really neat as long as it's quick and people aren't holding fish out of water waiting for acceptance. This sounds good bobby and ya'll are putting a lot of thought and effort into it.

I have no doubt that this trail is going to be awesome all the time and effort I have been hearing about that is going into this is definitely going to show sounds like this is going to take kayak bass fishing to the next level.

This sounds great. I don't have the kind of schedule flexibility to be able to prepare for and then fish a series like this, so I won't be participating, but I'm definitely rooting for it to be a big success. I think the big name sponsors that everyone seems to think should be interested in kayaks might just take notice of an event like this. There will be hiccups along the way but kudos to you Robert and your compadres for taking this on...

When you say "200" is your minimum number...do you mean you need at least 200 for each individual tournament? Or do you mean you need 200 members to sign up? What happens if you don't get 200?
Even the FLW Tour doesn't draw 200 boats. I'd be shocked if you were to average 200 kayaks for all six tournaments...it would be great...but I'm not sure that will happen. That is a lot of travel and money spent on gas, food and lodging for a small entry fee and payout. You might be getting a lot of questions now...I have no doubt about that...but to actually get entry fees from 200 kayak anglers for each tournament is a very different thing. Let me reiterate, I hope you do average 200 kayaks per event...and I plan to fish at least three of them...but I'll be very surprised if you average 200 kayaks per tournament.

I'm sorry man, that wasn't very clear how I said that. There is no minimum. I'm saying that's the minimum we're expecting.

I hear what you're saying, but what you call small payouts will be the largest in the sport.

We're also working out deals for discounted flights and we've already secured kayak rentals at $10/day, as well as rod rentals. You could fly in at a discount, rent a kayak for $10 and a rod for $2, fish the tourney and fly home that night. We realize the travel is the biggest hurdle and we're doing what we can to make it as easy as possible. Camping will be free at most of the events, if not all of them, and we're securing discounted hotel rates near each lake right now.

The FLW tour doesn't draw 200 boats because the entry fee is $6,000.

I definitely understand your skepticism, but we're confident we'll hit that mark. Hope to see you at a few events!

I like the idea of national trails but ones with rules that don't give anyone an advantage over any other group other than the pedal boys that already have that one in the bag. I read the rules several times and some I really like. No brother-in-lawing or bartering on fishing locations...believe it or not folks do that a lot and I'm all for any rules that do away with that time honored low life tactic.

Then I read in the rules where teams are encouraged to enter and lure sharing is allowed. What the %*&$ is that about?

I also worry about folks not being able to align decimal points.

Guess I've already been disqualified as I think there is a rule about criticism of the tournament on public forums not allowed.